Home Made Summer
by Yvette van Boven
ISBN-13: 9781617690150
Published: May 14, 2012 by Harry N. Abrams
Received at Book Expo America 2012
In a small change of pace, I wanted to take a look at a cookbook today! Now, cookbooks are a funny thing for me because I don’t love to cook. In fact I often try to avoid it and always end up making the same kind of meals over and over again because they’re easy, quick and simple. But I love to bake and I love cookbooks. I always look through them and dream about all the meals I’ll make and then…never do. Home Made Summer has taken me 8 years to review for precisely that reason. I picked this gorgeous cookbook up at BEA 2012 because during an initial flip through the pictures were beautiful, the recipes well laid out and I saw some foods I thought I’d love to try. At home, the book ended up on a shelf and wasn’t touched. Why? Seafood. A lot of seafood. Many of the main course recipes call for some form of seafood and I don’t eat fish. Or shellfish. Nothing from the sea. I didn’t dive deeper into the book, until this year (thank you quarantine) when I was cleaning out my recipe books and decided to browse this one again before deciding if I should donate it. I’m so glad I did (and didn’t donate!).
Many of the main course recipes still intimidate me, either because of their use of seafood or some more obscure ingredients that I feel must be more prevalent in European grocery stores than Canadian ones, but the desserts – oh the desserts! Remember how I just said I don’t like cooking, but I love to bake? Oh I love to bake, and this cookbook has some beautiful sweet recipes in it. First up was the peach tart. This is honestly the most simple pie I have ever made. No pie pan needed, no finicky crust or complicated filling. All you need is a food processor, peaches, sugar and a pan. The crust is made directly in the food processor and chilled for half an hour. The peaches are sliced, mixed with sugar and left to sit for half an hour. Then you roll out the dough, pour on the peaches, fold up the sides of the dough and bake. So simple! And amazingly delicious. I have a new pie crust recipe now! This one is perfect. I’ve included a picture of my second tart, with some sprinkled icing sugar on top (and served with vanilla ice cream). Just made my third peach tart tonight! As my fiance said after the first one: “We could have been having this the whole time we’ve lived together? What other cookbooks are you hiding?”
The second recipe I tried is one of my all time favourite desserts: strawberry shortcake. I love strawberry shortcake so much. I like it with biscuits, I like it with pound cake, I like it as a cake, I just like it all ways. So of course I had to try Yvette van Boven’s version. And it’s my new fav. The biscuits (scones) are slightly crunchy on the outside like a traditional tea biscuit but the inside is almost like a cake. They are delicious! Served with whipped cream and sugared strawberries this dessert is a must have for any BBQ, party, Friday afternoon – you know, whenever. I’ve made this twice so far this July. This recipe is simple as well; the dough uses a food processor and the strawberries are just sliced and mixed with sugar. I wish I had thought of using a food processor for simple doughs before this; it’s a time saver.
My fiance wants to try the beef stew recipe, and I’m excited to attempt the pumpkin fritters. So while I haven’t found a ton of recipes in this book to try, the breakfast and cake sections, as well as the drinks, have some winners and there are a couple mains that I think are worth an attempt.
As for the layout of the book itself, the pictures are beautiful and the anecdotes that accompany the recipes are fun. I did find the background colour of some of the handwritten recipes hard to see – for example the strawberry shortcake recipe is “handwritten” on a dark red background with black font. For someone with bad eyesight like myself, it’s a bad combination. I wrote it onto a recipe card so I wouldn’t strain my eyes each time I want to make it. Some of the recipes have very small, crowded font, like for the eclairs and macarons. Overall, this is a beautiful example of a cookbook, with a fair range of recipes. Especially if you enjoy seafood, vegetables and cake. And who doesn’t like cake?
Escape Through the Pages 